page_title: No. 263 Squadron RAF
section_title: Gloster Gladiator and Norway
hierarchical_section_title: No. 263 Squadron RAF / History / Second World War / Gloster Gladiator and Norway
caption_attribution_description: English: Artist's impression (by Seán Pòl Ó Creachmhaoil) of the Gloster Gladiator flown by Bermudian Flying Officer Herman Francis Grant "Baba" Ede, DFC, during the Battle of Norway. Ede was the first Bermudian killed in the Second World War, dying along with most aboard the aircraft carrier, HMS Glorious, when she was sunk while evacuating his 263 Squadron from Norway on 8 June, 1940. Ede was one of numerous Bermudians who served as aircrew in the Royal Air Force, Fleet Air Arm, and the Royal Canadian Air Force during the war (see Royal Air Force, Bermuda, 1939-1945).
context_page_description: No 263 Squadron was a Royal Air Force fighter squadron formed in Italy towards the end of the First World War. After being disbanded in 1919 it was reformed in 1939 flying mainly strike and heavy fighter aircraft until becoming No 1 Squadron in 1958.
context_section_description: The Gladiator may look like a First World War aircraft but with twice the speed of most First World War fighters it had considerably better performance. As a fighter, it did not compare well with the type of enemy aircraft it might expect to meet in the Second World War, being only slightly faster than the Heinkel 111 bomber.
  Germany invaded Norway on 9 April 1940 and 263 Squadron was soon instructed to prepare for a move. On 20 April, the aircraft were flown, via RAF Sealand, to Scapa Flow, Scotland where Fleet Air Arm pilots landed them on the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious and 18 Gladiators sailed for Norway. On 24 April, after two days sailing, the Squadron flew its aircraft off the carrier to a landing strip on the frozen lake Lesjaskogsvatnet in Oppland in central southern Norway.
  Unfortunately for the enterprise, the squadron was extremely short of ground staff and equipment and few of its Gladiators had been prepared for combat, when the Luftwaffe struck with Heinkel 111s shortly after daybreak on 25 April. By the end of 26 April, although 263 Squadron had managed to destroy two Heinkels, all of its aircraft had been destroyed or rendered unserviceable and by the end of the month the squadron was ordered home.
  The re-equipped squadron returned to the far north of Norway on 21 May, flying from Bardufoss airfield, near Narvik, reinforced by No 46 Squadron whose Hurricanes arrived a few days later, using an airstrip at Skånland. Due to unsuitable ground at Skånland, 46 Squadron moved so that both were operating from Bardufoss by 27 May.
  The squadrons had been ordered to defend the fleet anchorage at Skånland and the military base at Harstad on the island of Hinnøya. Action was short but intense before the squadrons were instructed on 2 June to prepare for evacuation; 263 Squadron had flown 249 sorties and claimed 26 enemy aircraft destroyed. 263's ten surviving Gladiators were landed on HMS Glorious on 7 June. Glorious sailed but was intercepted by the German battleships Gneisenau and  Scharnhorst. She was sunk and along with the aircraft from four squadrons. 263 Squadron lost its CO, S/Ldr John W Donaldson, F/Lt Alvin T Williams and P.O. Sidney Robert McNamara along with seven other pilots. Among the pilots who fought with the squadron in Norway and died on Glorious, was F.O. Grant Ede, DFC, one of many Bermudians to serve in the RAF during the war and the first Bermudian to die in the war.
caption: Artist's impression of the Gloster Gladiator flown by Bermudian Flying Officer H.F.G. "Baba" Ede, DFC, on the 24th May, 1940.
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